A few items of note. There's a new hearing of the Texas State Board of Education on the science textbook issue. By law they're required to have 2 hearings, and I blogged about my experience at the previous one. This one they're limiting to 4 hours max of testimony. So I may or may not get time to testify, depending on when I sign up on Friday - the only day they have open for signing up! But I'm going to Austin to meet up with and talk with folks from the National Center for SCience Education (NCSE) and others supportive of evolution.
Here's a press release about registration, which is tomorrow, Friday Jan 16, 2009, only.
Dear Texas Friends,
The Texas State Board of Education has an upcoming meeting on 21 January 2009 at which there will be an opportunity for the public to testify about the third TEKS draft.
The third and final TEKS draft has been released, and we feel that speakers should encourage the SBOE to adopt this draft. The third draft does not use the “strengths & limitations” language present in the second draft and is stronger scientifically than the previous drafts. However, the SBOE may decide to ignore these recommendations and cobble together their own Science TEKS at the last minute, which this board previously did for the English Language Arts TEKS.
To testify, you must register this Friday, 16 December, between 8 am and 5 pm (Central). Registration usually occurs on the Friday and Monday before the meeting; however, this time Monday is a holiday. Because there will be a 4-hour time limit on the testimony, we encourage potential speakers to sign up early on Friday. Each speaker is limited to 3 minutes, and should bring 35 handouts of the main points of his or her testimony.
According to the TEA website, you may register, by phone, fax, or in person by:
1. phone: 512-463-9007
2. fax: 512-936-4319 (on this form, chose “Full Board”:
http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/sboe/forms/registration_testimony.html
3. in person: at the William B. Travis (WBT) State Office Building, 1701 N. Congress, Austin, Texas 78701
TEA webpage for testifying before Full Board:
http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/sboe/op_rules.html#publictestimony
TEA webpage for meeting (the details of the 21 January meeting are not yet
posted, but will be posted to this address):
http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/sboe/mtg_mat_current.html
The third TEKS draft:
http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/teks/Sci_TEKS_9-12_Clean_010509.pdf
On another note, I came across this interesting Pharyngula blog post, Texas has a problem, by PZ Myers about the state of Texas education...
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1 comment:
geesh, just 4 hours of testimony?? Hope you got in and keep us posted!
By the way, did you ever find your kitty?
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